Tides of Light, Page 2

  If crew were already harvesting, then Killeen knew he had been running a bit too long. He deliberately did not use the time display in his suit, since the thing was ageold and its symbols were a confusing scramble of too much data, unreadable to his untutored mind. Instead he checked his inboard system. The timer stuttered out a useless flood of information and then told him he had been running nearly an hour. He did not know very precisely how long an hour was, but as a rule of thumb it was enough.

  He wrenched the airlock stays free, prepared to enter, looked up for one last glimpse of the vista—and the idea popped forth, unbidden.

  In a heartbeat he turned the notion over and over, inspecting every nuance of it, and knew it was right.

  He studied the sky, saw the course Argo would follow in the gradually lifting gloom of the cloud-shadow. If they had to, there was enough in the sky to navigate by eye.

  He cycled through the axial lock, passed quickly through the tight zero-g vapor shower, and was back inside the spun-up corridors within a few minutes.

  Lieutenant Cermo was waiting for him at the midships gridpoint. He saluted and said nothing about Killeen’s lateness, though his irrepressible grin told Killeen that the point had not slipped by. Killeen did not return the smile and said quietly, “Sound quarters.” The way Cermo’s mouth turned down in utter dismayed surprise brought forth a thin smile from Killeen. But by that time Cermo had hurriedly turned away and tapped a quick signal into his wrist command, and so missed his Cap’n’s amusement entirely.

  TWO

  He directed the assault from the hull itself—not so much because of Ling’s windbag advice, Killeen told himself, but because he truly did get a better feel of things out there.

  So he stood, anchored by magnetic boots, as sunrise came.

  Not the coming of sunlight from a rotating horizon, a spreading glory at morning. Instead, this false dawn came as a gradual waxing radiance, seen through billowing, thinning grit.

  Killeen had noticed that soon Argo would pass across the last bank of clotted dust that hid Abraham’s Star from them. The swelling sunburst would come as the ship very nearly eclipsed the mech vehicle that was escorting them inward toward the star.

  —Still don’t see why the mech won’t adjust for that,—Cermo sent from the control vault.

  “It will. Question is, how fast?”

  Killeen felt relaxed, almost buoyant. He had committed them, after a week of vexed, fretting worry. If they entered the inner system around Abraham’s Star with an armed mech vessel alongside, a mere quick command from elsewhere could obliterate Argo. Best take it out now. If that proved impossible, this was the time to know it.

  He searched the quilted sky for a single figure.

  —Approaching on assigned path,—Gianini sent.

  This young woman had been chosen by Jocelyn to close with the mech. Killeen recalled that she came from Family Rook and knew her to be an able crewwoman. He followed standard practice in letting his lieutenants choose specific crew for jobs; they knew the intricacies of talent and disposition far better than he. Gianini had fought mechs back on Snowglade, was seasoned and twice wounded.

  And Killeen found her—a distant dot that sparkled amber and yellow as Abraham’s Star began to cut through the shrouding clouds that hung over his shoulder, filling a quarter of the sky. The brooding mass had lightened from ebony to muted gray as it thinned. Shredded fingers of starshine cut the spaces around Argo. And Gianini sped toward the mech, using the sudden rise of brilliance at her back to mask her approach.

  A tactic. A stratagem. A life.

  A necessary risk, because the mech was too far away to hit with their weapons, which were designed for battles fought on land. Argo herself carried no weaponry, no defenses.

  —I’ll hit it with microwave and IR, then the higher stuff.—Gianini’s voice was steady, almost unconcerned.

  Killeen did not dare reply, and had ordered Cermo not to allow any transmissions from Argo, lest they attract the mech’s attention in the ship’s direction. Gianini’s directed transmissions back could not alert the mech vehicle, though.

  As they had calculated, Abraham’s Star began to brim with waxy radiance. Rays refracted through Killeen’s helmet, sprinkling yellow across his lined face. He found he was clenching and unclenching his hands futilely.

  Do it now, he thought. Now!

  —Firing.—

  He strained, but could see no change in either the dot that was Gianini or the dark point where the mech moved against the blue background glow of a molecular cloud.

  —I can’t see any effect.—

  Killeen grimaced. He wanted to give an order, if only to release his own tension. But what would he say? To be careful? A stupid, empty nattering. And even sending it might endanger her.

  —Closing pretty fast.—

  Gianini was a softening yellow dot approaching a vague darkness. Action in space had an eerie, dead-silent quality that unnerved Killeen. Death came sliding ballistically into the fragile shells that encased moist life.

  Starshine from behind him swelled and blared and struck hard shadows across Argo’s hull. He felt how empty and barren space was, how it sucked human action into its infinite perspectives. Gianini was a single point among a countless plethora of similar meaningless points.

  He shook off the thought, aching to do something, to be running and yelling and firing in the midst of a suddenly joined battle that he could feel.

  But above him the dots coalesced in utter silence. That was all. No fervor, nothing solid, no sure reality.

  Burnished sunlight raked the hull around him. Time ticked on. He squinted at the sky and tried to read meaning into mere twitches of random radiance.

  —Well, if that don’t damn all.—

  What? he thought. His heart leaped to hear Gianini’s voice, but her slow, almost lazy words could mean anything.

  —This thing’s had its balls cut off. Ruined. All those antennas and launchers we saw in closeup, ’member? Their power source is all blowed away. Nothin’ here that works ’cept for some drive chambers and a mainmind. Guess that’s what led it our way.—

  Killeen felt a breath he had been holding forever rush out of his chest. He chanced a transmission. “You’re sure it can’t shoot?”

  —Naysay. Somethin’ pranged it good. A real mess it is here.—

  “Back off, then.”

  —You want I should skrag the mainmind?—

  “Yeasay. Leave a charge on it.”

  —Doin’ that now.—

  “Get clean clear before you blow it.”

  —I’ll put it close, be sure.—

  “No contact, just leave it—”

  Killeen’s ears screamed the horrible sound of circuit ringing—a long high oscillating twang as a load of electrical energy bled off into space, acting as an involuntary antenna as raw power surged through it.

  “Gianini! Gianini! Answer!”

  Nothing. The ringing wail steepled down into low frequencies, an ebbing, mournful song—and was gone.

  “Cermo! Suit trace!”

  —Getting nothing.—Cermo’s voice was firm and even and had the feel of being held that way no matter what.

  “Damn—the mainmind.”

  —Figure it was on a trigger mine?—

  “Must’ve.”

  —Still nothing.—

  “Damn!”

  —Maybe the burst just knocked out her comm.—

  “Let’s hope. Send the backup.”

  Cermo ordered a crewman out to recon the mech vehicle. But the man found Gianini floating away from the wrecked craft, her systems blown, her body already cold and stiff in the unforgiving vacuum.

  THREE

  Killeen walked stiffly down the ceramo-corridors of the Argo, his face as unyielding as the walls. The operation against the mech was a success, in the sense that a plausible threat to the ship was removed. They had detonated the charge Gianini had left behind on the mech, and it had blown the vehicle in
to a dozen pieces.

  But in fact it had been no true danger, and Killeen had lost a crewwoman discovering that fact.

  As he replayed their conversation in his mind he was sure he could have said or done nothing more, but the result was the same—a second’s carelessness, some pointless close approach to the mainmind of the vehicle, had fried Gianini. And had lessened Family Bishop that much more, by one irreplaceable individual.

  Numbering fewer than two hundred, they were perilously close to the minimum range of genotypes which a colony needed. Any fewer, and future generations would spiral downward, weighed by genetic deficiencies.

  This much Killeen knew, without understanding even a smattering of the underlying science. Argo’s computers held what they called “DNA database operations.” There was a lab for biowork. But Family Bishop had no Aspects who knew how to prune genes. Basic bioengineering was of marginal use. He had no time and even less inclination to make more of such issues.

  But Gianini, lost Gianini—he could not so brusquely dismiss her memory by seeing her as simply a valuable carrier of genetic information. She had been vibrant, hardworking, able—and now she was nothing. She had been chipstored a year ago, so her abilities survived as a spectral legacy. But her ghostly Aspect might not be revived for centuries.

  Killeen would not forget her. He could not.

  As he marched stiffly to his daily rounds—delayed by the assault—he forced the somber thoughts away from him. There was time for that later.

  You are acting wisely. A commander can feel remorse and can question his own orders—but he should never be seen to be doing that by his crew.

  Killeen gritted his teeth. A sour bile settled in his mouth and would not go away.

  His Ling Aspect was a good guide in all this, but he still disliked the calm, sure way the ancient Cap’n laid out the precepts of leadership. The world was more complex, more darkly crosscurrented, than Ling ever allowed.

  You assume too much. I knew all the tides that sweep you, when I was clothed in flesh. But they are often hindrances, not helps.

  “I’ll keep my ‘hindrances,’ little Aspect!”

  Killeen pushed Ling away. He had a role to fulfill now and the small chorus of microminds that he felt calling to him could be of no help. He had followed Ling’s advice and decided to continue with the regular ship’s day, despite the drama of the assault. Returning to ordinary routine, as though such events were within the normal course of a ship’s life, would help settle the crew.

  So he had told Cermo to carry on as planned. Only now did he realize what that implied.

  Killeen rounded a corner and walked toward the open bay where the crew of the morning’s watch waited. Halfway there Cermo greeted him with, “Punishment hour, sir?”

  Killeen stopped himself from clenching his jaws and nodded, recalling the offense from yesterday.

  Cermo had caught a crewwoman in the engine module. Without conferring with his Cap’n, Cermo had hauled her—a stringy, black-haired woman named Radanan—unceremoniously out into the lifezone, barking out his relish at the catch. The deed was publicly exposed before Killeen had a chance to find other means to deal with it. He had been forced to support his officer in the name of discipline; his Ling Aspect had drilled that principle into him.

  “Yeasay. Proceed.”

  “Could give her more, y’know.”

  “I said proceed.”

  He had firmly resolved to speak as little as possible to his officers during ordinary ship operations. He was like a drinker who could not trust himself to stick to moderate amounts. In Family meetings he gave himself a little leeway, though. There, eloquence and even outright oration served his ends. He knew he was not very good at talk, and the briefer he was the more effect it had. As Argo had approached this star system he had gotten more and more terse. There were days when most of the crew heard him say only a short “ah-mmm” as he pointedly cleared his throat at some demonstrated inadequacy.

  As they made their way to the central axis Killeen set his face like stone. He was ashamed of his aversion to watching punishment. He knew that to punish a crewmember was a sign of his own failure. He should have caught the slide in behavior before it got this far. But once the event had occurred there was no turning back.

  In this case, Radanan had been trying to sneak into the thrumming dangers of the engine zone as they decelerated. This alone would have been a mild though flagrantly stupid transgression. But when Cermo caught her she had bristled, bitterly angry, and had called on some friends nearby, trying to provoke a minor mutiny.

  A wise Captain hands out rougher justice than this.

  His Ling Aspect offered this without being summoned. “She just screamed and swore some, is all,” Killeen subvocalized. “And was stupid enough to take a poke at Cermo.”

  Mutiny is a capital offense.

  “Not on the Argo.”

  She’ll incite others, harbor resentment—

  “She was looking for food, just a minor—”

  You’ll lose control if—

  Killeen damped the Aspect’s self-righteous bark into silence.

  Evidently Radanan had been looking for a way to scavenge something extra, though Killeen could not imagine what she thought she might find. Usually, crew were caught pilfering food, an outcome of the strict rationing Killeen had imposed for a year now.

  The watch crew stood a little straighter as Killeen came into the area. Radanan was at the center of a large circle, since this was both a shipboard matter and a Family reproach. She looked down dejectedly. Her eyes seemed to have accepted already the implications of the cuffs around her wrists that held her firmly to a mooring line.

  Cermo barked out the judgment. Two crewmen stood ready to hold Radanan at the elbows in case she should jerk away from the punishment. She bleakly watched as Cermo brought out the short, gleaming rod.

  Killeen made himself not grit his teeth. He had to enforce his own rules or else nothing he said would be believed. And he did blame himself. The woman was not overly bright. She had originally been a member of Family Rook.

  By tribal consent, all those who had chosen to set off in the Argo had realigned, so that they constituted a new Family composed of the Bishops, Rooks, and Kings. They had elected to term it Family Bishop still, and Killeen had never been sure whether this was a tribute to him, a Bishop, or a simple convenience.

  At any rate, as he watched the hard rod come down upon Radanan’s buttocks, he thought it seemed unlikely that a woman small-minded enough to venture into dangerous territory in search of an oddment would benefit from so crude a tactic as flogging. But tradition was tradition. They had precious little else to guide them in this vast darkness.

  A dozen cuts of the rod as Family punishment, each one counted out by a midshipman. And as ship’s punishment, twelve more. Radanan held herself rigid for the first six and then began to jerk, gasps bursting out from behind clenched teeth. Killeen thought he would have to turn away but he made himself think of something, anything, while Cermo ran the count to twenty.

  Then she collapsed to the deck.

  “Belay that!” Killeen said sharply, and the awful business was over. She had stumbled so that she hung by her wrists. That took matters beyond anything he would tolerate and gave him grounds to call it off four strokes short.

  He struggled for something to say. “Ah-mmm. Very well, Lieutenant Cermo. On to the day’s orders, then.”

  Killeen turned and left quickly, hoping that no one noticed that he was sweating.

  FOUR

  He made his way in a sour temper through the slick corridors connecting the life vault with the central axis spiral. His anger with himself could find no clear expression. He knew he should have become hardened to the necessity of imposing punishment. Barring that, he should have been clever enough to find a way around the situation that Cermo’s quick action had forced on him.

  A whiff of sewage wrinkled his nose. He hastened past. All of third deck was seal
ed off. Even so, some sludge had leaked into ventilation shafts here, and crew somehow never got it all cleaned out. The problem had started a year ago with clogged toilets. Attempts at repair damaged the valves and servos. The waste had spread through the third deck until work details gagged, fainted, and refused to go in. Killeen had been forced to seal the deck, losing bunking quarters and shops.

  He irritably demanded of his Ling Aspect, “You’re sure you can’t remember any more about pipes and such?”

  Ling’s reply was stony:

  No. I have informed you often enough that I was brought up through the combat ranks, not the engineers. If you had not let ignorant crew tinker with the problem—

  “I got no engineers know ’bout that, in chip or living. You savvy so much, why can’t—”

  If you’ll read the ship’s flow diagram—

  “Can’t! They’re too ’plexified. It’s like tellin’ what a woman thinks by studyin’ every hair on her head.”

  Even a ship like this, though far advanced beyond some I commanded, requires intelligence to run. If you’ll institute the study sessions I recommended long ago—

  Make Family sit and decipher for weeks?” Killeen laughed dryly. “You saw how far I got with that.”

  Your people are unlike anyone I ever commanded, I’ll grant that. You are from a society that scavenged and stole for a living—

  “Won battles ’gainst the mechs, you mean. The food and ’quipment we got was war booty.”

  Call it what you will. Such training is a far cry from the discipline and skill needed to fix even a broken sewer connection. Still, with time and proper training—

  Killeen piped the Ling Aspect back down again; he had heard all this before. Ling knew of the Chandelier Age, when humans had great cities in space. Cap’ns had made year-long voyages between Chandeliers, braving the increasing mech raids. Ling himself had functioned then as a full interactive Personality. The Family could no longer maintain Personalities, so Ling was available only as the lesser, truncated projection—an Aspect.